21 Rand Paul quotes that expose libertarianism for the con job it is

Whether he's policing women's bodies or ignoring police brutality, the Kentucky Senator is a walking contradiction

Published February 26, 2015 8:45AM (EST)

  (Manuel Balce Ceneta)
(Manuel Balce Ceneta)

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

AlterNet Senator Rand Paul, of Kentucky, seems to have no problem contradicting himself. The self-proclaimed "constitutional conservative" is typically lost in libertarian thought leading him to make inflammatory sexist, racist and overbearingly hypocritical comments on nearly every issue he faces. Whether he's attempting to police women's bodies, ignoring police brutality for stingy tobacco taxes, or speaking out against vaccines and posting himself receiving booster shots only days later, Ron Paul's son is one politician you can unabashedly hate or enjoy laughing at.

1. When Paul spoke out against vaccines:

"I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines.

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Rand Paul / Twitter

 

2. When he backed voter ID laws:

"I don't think there's a problem with showing your ID, but I do think there's a problem with Republicans saying, 'Hey, our big issue for the campaign is going to be voter ID,' because what it creates is -- a lot of African-Americans understandably remember the '40s and '50s in the South, and they remember suppression of the vote."

3. When he spoke out against government assistance:

“As humans, yeah, we do have an obligation to give people water, to give people food, to give people health care."

“But it’s not a right because once you conscript people and say, ‘Oh, it’s a right,’ then really you’re in charge, it’s servitude, you’re in charge of me and I’m supposed to do whatever you tell me to do… It really shouldn’t be seen that way."

4. When he defended the BP oil spill:

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John Amos / Flickr

 

5. When he spoke out against Medicare and providing seniors food:

“It’s curious that only in Washington can you spend $2 billion and claim that you’re saving money.”

6. When he responded to Barack Obama's State of the Union:

"We are the party that adheres to the Constitution. We will not let the liberals tread on the Second Amendment! We will fight to defend the entire Bill of Rights. We will stand up against excessive government power wherever we see it. We cannot and will not allow any President to act as if he were a king. We will not let any President use executive orders to impinge on the Second Amendment."

7. When he warned that the Patriot Act is a threat to gun rights:

“Unless you want a government that can enter your house at will, check to see if you have trigger locks, measure the length of your guns and rapidity of their ability to fire, you must oppose violations of the Fourth Amendment like the PATRIOT Act.”

8. When he blew the whistle on the Federal Food and Drug Administration's plan to phase out trans fats:

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Phil King / Flickr

 

9.  When he compared Benghazi to the 9/11 attacks:

"I'm glad that you're accepting responsibility. I think ultimately with your leaving that you accept the culpability for the worst tragedy since 9/11. And I really mean that. Had I been president and found you did not read the cables from Benghazi and from Ambassador Stevens, I would have relieved you of your post. I think it's inexcusable."

10. When he defended lying:

"I never, ever cheated. I don't condone cheating. But I would sometimes spread misinformation. This is a great tactic. Misinformation can be very important."

11.  When he addressed his plagiarism critics:

"I'm being unfairly targeted by a bunch of hacks and haters."

 

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Rand Paul / Facebook

12.  When he compared healthcare to slavery:

“With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses.”

13.  When he created his own definition of "consitutional:"

“Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be ‘constitutional’ does not make it so. The whole thing remains unconstitutional.”

14.  When he said that raising minimum wage would hurt minorities and young job prospects:

“What I will say is 200 jobs even if they pay minimum wage are a lot better than zero jobs that pay zero dollars,” Paul said. “It is a fact, an economic fact, that when you raise the minimum wage the people who are hurt the worst are minorities and kids.”

15. When he confused sexism for comedy:

"Hillary Clinton's new Valentine's Day Pinterest board is worth a look. Check it out and please RT!"

"Gonna make the Oval Office a little more #Chic."

 

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Screenshot / Washington Post

 

16. And when he blamed Hillary Clinton for the ISIS conflict:

“One of the people I blame for a lot of this, frankly, is Hillary Clinton."

“The disaster that is Libya is now a breeding ground for terrorists and also a breeding ground for armament. I really do blame Hillary Clinton’s war in Libya for creating a lot of the chaos that is now spreading throughout the Middle East.”

17. When he blamed Eric Garner’s death on New York City's cigarette tax:

“I think it is important to know that some politician put a tax of $5.85 on a pack of cigarettes so that driven cigarettes underground by making them so expensive. But then some politician also had to direct the police say, ‘hey we want you arresting people for selling a loose cigarette.’ For someone to die over breaking that law, there is really no excuse for it. But I do blame the politicians. We put our police in a difficult situation with bad laws.”

18. When he got into a heated argument with a female TV news anchor:

"Shhh. Calm down a bit here, Kelly (Evans)."

 

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Screenshot / TIME

 

19. When he said unmarried, low-income women shouldn't have sex to avoid poverty:

"Maybe we have to say 'enough's enough, you shouldn't be having kids after a certain amount."

"[Being] married with kids versus unmarried with kids is the difference between living in poverty and not. We should sell that message. Not in a mean way to tell people who already have made a bad decision, but if you've had one child and you're not married, you shouldn't have another one."

20. When he admit that he doesn't fully support the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and wouldn't intervene if Martin Luther King Jr. was denied service at a Woolworths:

"I would not go to that Woolworth’s, and I would stand up in my community and say it’s abhorrent. um… But the hard part, and this is the hard part about believing in freedom is, if you believe in the First Amendment, for example, you to, for example– most good defenders will believe in abhorrent groups standing up and saying awful things, and we’re here at the bastion of newspaperdom (sic) and I’m sure you believe in the First Amendment, so I’m sure you understand people can say bad things. It’s the same way with other behaviors. In a free society we will tolerate boorish people who have abhorrent behavior, but if we’re civilized people we publicly criticize that and don’t belong to those groups or associate with those people."

21. And when he considered himself a civil rights hero:

“I don’t think there has been anybody who has been a bigger defender of minority rights in the Congress than myself.”

 

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Rand Paul / Instagram


By Justin Carissimo

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